Yes, we CAN!…plus CSA & mkts 7.21.2018

And you CAN can tomatoes, too! Tomatoes love July in Virginia and now is the time to start achieving your canning goals. We have tomatoes available in bulk at our self-serve FarmStand and at both farmers’ market this weekend. (Visit us at the Brandermill Green Market or the Farmer’s Market @ St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church.)
Our actual sauce tomatoes aren’t available in bulk yet, but our delicious multi-colored heirlooms and our red tomatoes make fabulous sauce to feed you through the winter.

If you’re feeling nervous about canning, please remember that tomatoes are a great vegetable to start with, and following recipes from Ball’s website is a great idea. We use this Crushed Tomato recipe for our canning, so that we have as many options as possible in the winter. If we want to make salsa, we spice it that way in January when we open a jar. If we want to make a marinara sauce, we spice it that way when we open a jar in February.

While you’re canning, you just might need some eye candy to keep you company:
Flowers are rolling to feed your spirit this summer as you preserve the bounty. 🙂

On the horizon: Snack Peppers and Green Beans are on their way! And our mid-summer Carrot attempts are plugging along…

Vegetable Notes & Recipe Suggestions…also cataloged on our Recipe Page and see our Pinterest PageSweet Peppers – These are such a staple of our summer. We dice them to make a Tomato-Pepper-Garlic-Olive Oil-Salt salad. We roast them and build sandwiches/subs with them as one of the toppings. We cut them in half to be “Pepper Boats” and fill them with anything like salmon-salad (like tuna-fish salad, but with wild salmon), cream cheese dip, or tofu salad. We grow bull-horn shaped peppers because they taste better AND grow better under organic conditions than bell-shaped peppers. Think of them like red and orange bell peppers.Potatoes – We don’t grow many, but we think the ones we grow are extra delicious. Most of this year’s potatoes are Purple. Our favorite way to prepare is to dice into large 1-inch-ish chunks, toss with oil, salt, and pepper, and roast in the oven at 400 degrees, 20-25 minutes, or different depending on the size of your potato pieces.Watermelon – We hope your watermelons were delicious last week and that you are ready for another!Eggplant – This is a commonly misunderstood vegetable. Meaning, many don’t understand how to best enjoy it. All pick up locations will be getting some eggplant over the next two months, but not a lot. We don’t grow very much of it because we’ve seen it to be not as popular as other vegetables, and we grow untraditional varieties that we have found to be most delicious. It doesn’t have a strong flavor on its own, so combining it with the right sauce or spices is critical. One of our amazing work-share members made this Baba Ganoush recipe for us last week with our eggplant. It is garlicky and delicious, and you can adjust the garlic up or down according to your preference. Some of our eggplant are miniature varieties. Slice them in half length-wise and roast or grill. Then scoop out the cooked innards and process into this dip. Pro tip: Kids will often eat vegetables that are made into a dip! See this Baba Ganoush recipe for instructions about how to broil rounds of eggplant instead of grilling it. You don’t need to over think this. Just get the eggplant “meat” cooked, then blend it with tahini and other ingredients to make a crowd-pleasing dip. We also love eggplant roasted (in slices of our round variety, or halved miniature eggplants) and then topped with either Balsamic Glaze or Tahini Sauce.Okra – This vegetables is also often feared and misunderstood. We are growing a new variety this year that we really love. It’s tender (not woody) even at 12-15 inches long! And it has less goo inside than other varieties. Try it as Grilled Okra, Roasted Okra, Crunchy Oven Fried Okra, Pickled Okra, or enjoy it in a Vegetable Curry recipe: just choose your favorite jar of prepared curry sauce (or make your own) and add in a bunch of chopped vegetables, including okra and tomatoes, peppers, squash, and simmer. Serve with protein and carb of choice. We encourage you to try this veggie if you don’t know it or even if you’ve previously thought you didn’t like it. BUT if you are completely opposed to it and don’t want to give it to a friend, you are welcome to leave it in a white crate at the pick up site.

STORAGE TIPS – Bulb Onions – We are now giving you onions that we have dried. You can keep them in the fridge but they prefer a cool, dry, dark pantry. They aren’t long-storing onions, so use them within a week or two.Eggplant – These can handle being at room temp for a couple of days, and they can handle fridge temp. They don’t have a very long shelf life, so use within a few days of receiving.Sweet Peppers – They can be at room temp for a couple of days but are best refrigerated, bag or sealed container.Watermelon – Fridge is best for a cold and refreshing melon! But it can handle room temp for a couple of days.Garlic – Garlic prefers dry and dark. It’s best kept in a mesh bag or basket in a dark pantry. But the Farm Share will include a bulb each week for the next few weeks, so you don’t need to store each bulb for very long.